


The Wicked Stepmother

by hrhrionastar



Series: Wicked Stepmother [2]
Category: Legend of the Seeker
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-21
Updated: 2012-07-21
Packaged: 2017-11-10 10:19:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/465196
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hrhrionastar/pseuds/hrhrionastar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nicci shares an afternoon with her family - including her glowering stepdaughter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Wicked Stepmother

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Marathon Challenge on [legendland](http://legendland.livejournal.com/) for the prompt of _Richard/Nicci, marriage and family._

Two small girls sat in a square of sand, fenced in by gray bricks carted all the way from Aydindril. The younger girl, Dennee, pushed another stick into the sand. It was slightly off the perpendicular, but the tiny stage was still clearly set as the Pillars of Creation. As Nicci watched, the elder of the two, Mary, opened her hands and let leaf fragments rain down, catching in Dennee's dark hair and making her giggle.  
  
"Girls!" Nicci called. "Dessert!"  
  
Dennee came at once, sticks and leaves and sand falling from her skirts as she skipped over to Nicci and reached for one of the baby's dangling feet. Nicci had infant George riding on her hip. A glass platter in her other hand balanced on her open palm.  
  
Mary hadn't moved from the sandbox. She crossed her arms and glowered at Nicci.  
  
"Persimmon pie," Nicci enticed, lifting the platter to her nose and sniffing theatrically. The scent of warm spiced fruit wafted up to her, and she decided right then that Zeddicus wasn't wrong about persimmons—they really were the best fruit to grow in the Midlands.  
  
She agreed with the First Wizard that the green, life-friendly Midlands were infinitely preferable to harsh, arid D'Hara as well—the sandbox just reminded her of the deserts littering her husband's empire.  
  
Richard Rahl. Seeker of Truth, Lord of D'Hara, Savior of the Land of the Living…and Nicci's husband.  
  
She smiled just thinking about him. He'd rescued her more times than she could count. From the Keeper, from Jagang, from Darken Rahl. Even—especially—from the darkness in her own soul.  
  
And here he was.  
  
Nicci sensed her husband before he came up behind her, one arm around her waist as he kissed her hair.  
  
"Richard!" she exclaimed in laughing protest. The pie platter wobbled in her grasp.  
  
Richard took it and set it down amid the plates and forks set up on the picnic table. He swept Dennee up into his arms and tucked her onto the bench. She clapped her hands at the prospect of dessert, but then frowned.  
  
"But Daddy, what about Granda?" she wanted to know.  
  
"We'll save some for your great-grandfather, honey, don't worry," Richard assured his daughter. "Zedd's busy in the magic lab right now."  
  
He met Nicci's eyes, and she followed his gaze to Mary. The dark-haired girl still stood by the sandbox, and it was plain she had no intention of joining Richard and Nicci and the two younger children at table.  
  
Nicci nearly said something cruel about Mary's mother under her breath. But she held her tongue for Richard's sake.  
  
Besides, Kahlan would probably scream the ceiling of the Halls of Eternal Peace down if she could see her daughters with Nicci. So that was revenge enough.  
  
Richard and Kahlan had fallen in love and saved the world and gotten married and united the Midlands and D'Hara and had two beautiful children, and presumably would've lived happily ever after.  
  
But Kahlan had died bringing Dennee into the world.  
  
Heartbroken, fending off his sister-in-law's suggestion that she take the girls and raise them in the ways of Confessors, sure only his lost and hitherto unlamented Han could have saved his wife, Richard demanded his magic back from Nicci.  
  
Luckily that fight was behind them.  
  
But no matter how sure she was of Richard's affection, Nicci struggled against Kahlan's departed spirit with others besides her husband.  
  
"Mama, want pie!" Dennee interrupted Nicci's thoughts.  
  
She blinked, removed a lock of her long blond hair from George's mouth, and handed him to his father. Then she locked eyes with Dennee.  
  
"What do you say?" she asked sternly.  
  
" _Please_ , Mama," Dennee whined, kicking her feet against the bench.  
  
Nicci kept an eye on Mary as she cut the pie. The girl still glowered, under bushy eyebrows she'd obviously inherited from her great-grandfather, but she looked wistful, too.  
  
Dennee didn't remember Kahlan. Nicci was the closest she'd ever had to a mother.  
  
Mary remembered Kahlan, though. And her aunt Cara's stories about the brave, honorable, beautiful, strong, smart, kind, wise Mother Confessor weren't helping Nicci any either.  
  
She met Richard's eyes one last time before going over to the sandbox, just in case Mary chose today to come into her powers and confess her stepmother.  
  
Richard just looked at Nicci, with those warm brown eyes that seemed to see straight into her soul. She sighed in defeat.  
  
Mary didn't meet Nicci's gaze, even when she knelt beside the sandbox. Nicci ran her fingers through the sand, making long furrows between the sticks. "What's this?" she asked, even though she knew.  
  
"It's when Mama and Dad saved the world," Mary relented enough to explain. "It used to be all desert. The Creator made it grow again." Hence the leaves, Nicci thought. Although she doubted they'd fallen from the sky the way the girls had scattered them over their sticks.  
  
Mary finally looked at Nicci. Her eyes were the same warm dark amber as her father's. " _You_ weren't there," she accused. "Because you were _evil._ "  
  
"I was," Nicci admitted. "Actually, I was there, too—that's when your aunt Cara shot me and left Darken Rahl to find me and have me revived by one of his Mord'Sith so he could try to steal my Han. Your father stopped him."  
  
"A Mord'Sith? So—were you dead?" Mary asked. Her folded arms relaxed a little from their dungeon-cell-bars-style rigidity.  
  
"Yes," agreed Nicci. "Twice," she added after a moment's pause. True, the time Zeddicus had blasted her with her own lightning, burning her so badly her sisters had to bring her soul back in another body, was nothing she was anxious to relive. But Mary never smiled like that in her presence.  
  
"Not like my mama, though," Mary observed. "You came back." Her tone implied that it would have been better if Nicci had stayed in the Underworld.  
  
Nicci stole a glance back at Richard, for courage. He was playing peekaboo with George and fending off Dennee's attempts to steal her sister's pie. He was laughing.  
  
Nicci felt her heart expand at the sight, like in the story she was reading Dennee about the lonely green man who hated Creatormas.  
  
She looked back at Mary. The girl glared at her with Richard's eyes.  
  
"I'm not your mama," said Nicci. "I never will be. But I know she loved you very much. And so do I."  
  
"You don't," Mary scoffed. But she sounded uncertain. "You love George, because he's _your_ baby. You want Daddy to send me and Dennee away."  
  
"Never," Nicci promised. If Dennee—the elder, more annoying Dennee—didn't stop pestering Richard about sending the girls to Aydindril, she might just forget her vow to Richard never to use her vast knowledge of dark magic ever again.  
  
"Now come have some persimmon pie," Nicci offered, getting to her feet. Mary looked like she was thinking about refusing, out of pride maybe. "Now!" Nicci ordered.  
  
Mary sat next to her sister, as far from Nicci as she could get. But she ate her pie.  
  
Nicci took George back from Richard because he was starting to fuss.  
  
"He's angry we're all having a treat he can't share," Richard explained.  
  
"You're too young for pie," Nicci told her son. She nursed him instead, and he quieted down.  
  
Zeddicus came by just as Richard was clearing up the plates. "I hope there's some left for me!" he bellowed. "Powerful magic builds up quite an appetite, you know."  
  
Nicci raised one perfectly arched eyebrow. "Powerful magic? Messing about with a novice's pentagram in that mess you call a lab?"  
  
Zeddicus glared at her quite as fiercely as Mary. But Nicci was unrepentant. She had to do something to balance out the wife and mother who'd baked a pie for her family. That was a side of her no one but Richard and the children were ever allowed to see.  
  
Richard leaned over and kissed Nicci's hair. She grabbed his cheek with her free hand and turned his face to hers for a much lengthier kiss.  
  
"Ew," said Mary.  
  
But she stayed to play with George after Richard went back inside to hold court in the throne room and Zedd took Dennee to the other end of the garden to push her in the tree swing Richard had built with his own hands.  
  
So that was progress.


End file.
